Jibananda Das
During the later half of the twentieth century, Jibanananda Das emerged as the most popular poet of modern Bengali literature. Popularity apart, Jibanananda had distinguished himself as an extraordinary poet presenting a paradigm hitherto unfamiliar. It is said that his unusual poetic diction, selection of words and thematic inclination took time to reach the heart of the readers. The poetry of Jibanananda has become the defining essence of modernism in twentieth century Bengali poetry. He is considered one of the precursors who introduced modernist poetry to Bengali Literature, at a period when it was influenced by Rabindranath Tagore's Romantic poetry. Towards the later half of the twentieth century the poetry of Jibanananda has become the defining essence of modernism in twentieth century Bengali poetry
Surrealism was one of his tools that he used to navigate in the Bengali literature with courage. He has shown his majestic mastery in lot of poems like Banalata Sen, Eight years ago one day, chil, poems of Rupashi Bangla and others. Jibanananda Das's poetry is occasionally result of profound feeling painted in imagery of a type not readily and easily comprehendable. At times the connection between the sequential lines is not apparent and clear. Jibanananda Das also deviated from the traditional circular structure of poetry (introduction-middle-end) and the pattern of logical sequence of words, lines and stanzas. As a result, the thematic undertone is often concealed under a rhythmic narrative that needs a careful reading between the lines.
For instance , his lyric Poem , Banalata Sen is the most representative of the essence of his poetry and exemplifies his use of imagery. The weary traveller is an interactive motif in his poetry.The poem itself uses four key images comprehensively, namely the darkness, flowing water, passage of time, and a woman. Jibanananda progressively develops these same four images throughout the poem, metamorphosing these from remoteness to intimacy, dimness to distinction and from separation to union.
. He was prone to write in free verse but could maintain a lyric tension althrough. Selection and placement of words often produced a music of alliteration within. Use of ordinary, household, rather unpoetic, words seemed to be intriguing. Profuse punctuations, particularly, frequent use of semi-colon and dash, were also noticeable. Nevertheless, his strength as a poet rang clear and loud.He often chose a theme and covered it with a tapestry of images, metaphors and similes, whereby his intended message metamorphosed into a picturesque text. While this impressed his literary colleagues, he was often misunderstood.
Generally Jibanananda’s poetry was a victim of continuous misunderstanding. For years, the Shanibarer Chithi, one of the most outspoken literary magazines of the time, chased him with merciless comments. The weekly, in its different issues, referred to at least thirty-five of his poems with sheer acrimony. Jibanananda was a very sensitive person. Undue criticism affected him seriously and jolted his self-confidence. According to his wife Labanya Das, whenever the poet felt frustrated about his poetic achievement, he would turn away to prose. Jibanananda Das conceived a poem and moulded it up in the way most natural for him. When a theme occurred to him, he shaped it with words, metaphors and imagery that distinguished him from all others. Jibanananda Das's poetry is to be felt, rather than merely read or heard.
Writing about Jibanananda Das' poetry, Joe Winter remarked:
“It is a natural process, though perhaps the rarest one. Jibanananda Das's style reminds us of this, seeming to come unbidden. It is full of sentences that scarcely pause for breath, of word-combinations that seem altogether unlikely but work, of switches in register from sophisticated usage to a village-dialect word, that jar and in the same instant settle in the mind, full of friction – in short, that almost becomes a part of the consciousness ticking.”
Jibanananda successfully integrated Bengali poetry with the slightly older Although hardly appreciated during his lifetime, many critics believe that his modernism, evoking almost all the suggested elements of the phenomenon, remains untranscended to date, despite the emergence of many notable poets during the last 50 years. His success as a modern Bengali poet may be attributed to the facts that Jibanananda Das in his poetry not only discovered the zone of the slowly evolving 20th-century modern mind, sensitive and reactive, full of anxiety and tension, but also that he invented his own diction, rhythm and vocabulary, with an unmistakably indigenous rooting, and that he maintained a self-styled lyricism and imagism mixed with an extraordinary existentialist sensuousness, perfectly suited to the modern temperament in the Indian context, whereby he also averted fatal dehumanization that could have alienated him from the people.
While reading Jibanananda Das, one often encounters references to olden times and places, events and personalities. A sense of time and history is an unmistakable element that has shaped Jibanananda Das's poetic world to a great extent. Amidst a vast meadow the last time when I met her
Thematically, Jibanananda Das is amazed by the continued existence of humankind in the backdrop of eternal flux of time, wherein individual presence is insignificant and meteoric although inevitable. To him, the world is weird and olden, and as a race, mankind has been a persistent "wanderer of this world" (Banalata Sen) that, according to him, has existed too long to know anything more (Before death, Walking alone) or experience anything fresh. B. S. Mardhekar has the honour of being an epoch maker of new age Marathi poetry. Bal Sitaram Mardhekar was a capable poet and literary scholar, who was responsible for breaking out of traditions in literature and venturing on new paths, influencing the contemporary period, and showing a new direction to authors of previous generations. Along with poetry, Mardhekar also made important contributions to the fields of literary contemplation, critic, novels and plays.
His earlier collection Shishiraagam was a product of typical poetry: sentimental, lyrical and conventional. But his later avant-garde collection brought about a storm in Marathi literary world. Similar to what Baudelaire did for the French poetry, he did for Marathi poetry by bringing in the decadent urban ethos. He was influenced by Marathi bhakti poetry and the poetry of T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden.
His poems that were of new age consciousness, experimental, thought provoking and at times poignant, were a matter of discussion even during his time. There was even an accusation of indecency in court against his poems, but he was declared innocent. His poems were also experimental and revolutionary in terms of essence, expression and creativity, which rejected the accepted style of writing, He used new models for illustrating the dissatisfaction and suffocation of mankind in the new machine age, using modern day English phrases like routine, punching, logging, etc. E.g. the following verse is based on a popular psalm. While implementing this new style of poetry he readily accepted the challenge of being incomprehensible and difficult to understand. But he remained honest to his own experiences.He wrote some pleasant, beautiful poems too along with his usual discouraging, morose poems.